I received a very thoughtful e-mail from Ben, a visitor to the blog, about the problems that our van was having with the air conditioning. His letter is in bold:
Hi,
Just read your post about the AC problems your van was having. I drove a
95 Chevy Lumina for years with a refrigerant leak. Since I only used the air in
the summer (I'm more of a ‘windows open' type man), I learned to refill it
myself.
(I was a windows-open type man until a couple of weeks ago. Then I turned wimpy with the heat wave!)
It's fairly easy to do, and instructions are printed right on the bottles that
you can pick up in Walmart or any car parts store. One canister (R-134a) will
run you around $15, and you may need up to two depending on how depleted your
system is. I was quoted around the same price to get mine fixed, and at the
time it was almost 60% of the the car's blue book value.
(My quote was about a third of our van's blue book.)
The $15-$30 and 20 minutes I spent doing this myself twice a summer made a lot
of sense when the shop wanted $70 to do the refill.
(Looks like I got soaked pretty badly — over $100 — but they did check for leaks outside the firewall for that.)
Your mileage may vary. (*** rim shot ***)
My mechanic said basically the same thing about filling it up when needed. He did warn that if it goes really dry during the winter then moisture could get in and damage things. Eventually I'll pay for the repair one way or another because I'd feel obligated to tell whomever I sell the van to about the problem if they ask. That, and I won't be able to refill it forever; leaks on vehicles get bigger with time.
What this boils down to is how much inconvenience you're willing to tolerate in order to save some money. (Or in this case, how much inconvenience my wife will be willing to tolerate!) For 20 minutes and $15 a pop twice a summer, and a hot van until it gets recharged, we can postpone a $1600 repair. This can be applied to other more cosmetic things too.
Thanks for the e-mail, Ben!
